


A Work In Progress: Kind Of Like WildKat's First 5 Years

by illicio



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-09 08:31:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1976115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illicio/pseuds/illicio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written in 2008.  The timeline jumps around a lot, so I would like to take a moment to assure the world Joshua isn't underage during the more questionable moments.</p>
    </blockquote>





	A Work In Progress: Kind Of Like WildKat's First 5 Years

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2008. The timeline jumps around a lot, so I would like to take a moment to assure the world Joshua isn't underage during the more questionable moments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

            Hanekoma's smile would have been sleazy if it belonged to any other tall, dark-haired man who looked roughly in his thirties and wore a five o'clock shadow as faithfully as he wore his sunglasses. It tilted his mouth so it was more of a smirk to anyone who didn't know him better. He looked over his dark glasses and across the table at his young customer, lifting his hand to scratch the side of his head. "You spent a lotta time thinkin' 'bout that, huh?"

            "Not a lot," said the boy, who was fair-haired, fair-skinned, purple-eyed, and pretty. A few years ago, he had probably been mistaken for a girl. "It's a loose theory, but I thought I'd bring it up to see what you think."

            "I see what you're sayin', J, but... ah, hell. This is too ugly."

            "I'm fine," he said, lifting his over-sized mug to his mouth with both hands. When his lips pressed against the edge as if in a chaste kiss, he urged, "Go ahead," muffled by his glass, because Hanekoma still seemed reluctant.

            "You sure?"

            "I'm sure."

            "Man, I'm glad you're not eatin' anything."

            The child's mouth curved and his eyes glittered, sharper than the edge of any knife. "I wouldn't, here," he answered, friendly like a discreet dagger to the heart.

            "Ha!" barked Hanekoma, who appreciated the finer things in life, like instant coffee and subtle insults. "As I was sayin' 'fore I interrupted m'self: now, I dunno if I agree. Those Liberian guys... I see what you're sayin', but... I don't think the parallel can be made. That group's too different -- the culture's too different. Some of those guys kill the weak and eat 'em just to intimidate hostages. Overall, humans are good an' great, but for that example, you picked..." He stopped speaking and winced when he saw alarm pass through Joshua's eyes like a lightning strike. He was still wincing when he said, "Let's stop talkin' 'bout that," because he didn't know Joshua well without cheating yet.

            The large mug touched the top of the café table with a light _thunk_. It was the only table in the shop. The place had been a work-in-progress since Joshua had met the world's most unreliable business owner and barista, Sanae Hanekoma, who lived in a perpetual state of swearing it would be finished soon, even if he was saying the same thing that time last year. "No, you're right." The boy lifted his left hand and waved it, effectively shooing away concern. "I'm surprised I didn't think of it first, though I would have come to the same conclusion eventually. Humans are worse than the Noise."

            " _Potentially_ ," reminded Hanekoma firmly, his posture relaxing into an uncomfortable shape. (Were spines meant to contort like that?) "And only some of 'em. Humans are different from everything else out there, J. Can't judge 'em like anything else. In good and bad ones, there's always room for improvement, but most of 'em aren't all bad. Just lookit you!"

            "Ugh," said the child, his tone a vocal eye roll.

            Hanekoma grinned. "Wanna 'nother refill, since I'm gettin' up? Won't charge you anything. You're lucky. If I was keepin' track, you'd be runnin' up a helluva tab!"

            "I hope you wouldn't," replied Joshua, who wasn't afraid of ball games of any kind, but was especially unafraid of hardball. His voice contained all the smile his mouth didn't wear, eyes low and clever. "I'm your only customer. If you don't charge me and if _you're_ lucky, I might come back."

            Hanekoma's laugh exploded like fireworks when he stood. "You're a tough little kid, you know that?" 

            He remembered a lot of things in his long lifetime, but found it easy to forget Joshua was thirteen.

            When he heard the polite, cheerful, "Thank you," follow him to the coffee maker, he couldn't have pried his grin with a crowbar.

 

 

 

            There weren't rules against it, but there was something definitely sinful and almost illegal about having a fourteen-year-old in your apartment when you weren't related to him, you were so old you forgot how old you were, and his parents didn't know where he was, but Hanekoma didn't have much of a choice. Taking the child home by force wasn't an option, if only for how awkward it would be to explain it to his parents and inevitably the police.

            It was ten o'clock at night and Hanekoma sat in the middle of what would have been a living room if anyone else had lived there, hunched over a guitar he was tuning.

            "Do you even know how many razors are in there?"

            He looked up.

            Joshua stood in the bathroom doorway, dressed in light purple night clothes. A white towel was wrapped around his shoulders, so stained with red paint it looked like a bloody bandage instead. His hair was still damp from a shower he'd taken, stray pieces beginning to curl into a disheveled mess.

            "Nah," said Hanekoma, looking back to the guitar strings, twisting a peg and plucking a few notes. "Lost track. Just pick 'em up once in a while. You know the deal. Go out, get coffee beans, get coffee, get some paint, get a guitar pick, a lighter, natto, stop for a pack'a razors..."

            Joshua decided to help his memory. "You've got six packs and thirteen loose ones," he said, stepping out of the doorway to cross to the bedroom where he slept on the nights he stayed there. (Hanekoma had long ago lost the battle whose rules now banned him from his own room when Joshua was present.) He added, "You have a lot of toothbrushes, too."

            "Good to switch 'em out once inna while."

            His young guest didn't sound convinced. "They're mixed with paint brushes."

            "Man, can't put anythin' past you!" Hanekoma lifted his head again, resisting the urge to grin as he often did around Joshua. Out of all potential stalkers he could have had, he appreciated this one's company the most. "You snooping in my cabinets?"

            "I was looking for _my_ toothbrush," he answered, closing his eyes once he reached the bedroom door frame, expression haughty but voice in far too high spirits to fool anyone. "But I'll tell myself you put it some place where you couldn't use it by mistake." Hanekoma's grinning mouth opened to say something, but Joshua cut him off before he had a chance. " _And_ ," he continued, tossing a look over his shoulder. "I can't believe you have a black and yellow razor sitting in the open like a statement of criminal intent or caution tape."

            Hanekoma looked at Joshua with wide eyes, his eyebrows raised at the comparison. It took a moment to hit him, but once his laugh stopped booming across the room, he barked, "Or a bee!"

 

 

 

            He visited less as he grew older -- not out of lack of desire, but he liked his job, his place of residence, and he was still testing Megumi Kitaniji.

            The bathroom was foggy and damp with heat that rivaled a sauna. Steam was rising from the tub when Joshua sank into it, his white skin pink except his face, which he kept above water. The tub was large enough for a man, but not one who was tall and lanky.

            He supposed Hanekoma only took showers.

            His eyelashes were low when he tilted his head back against the edge of the tub, looking to the ceiling, mouth down-turned in the unhappy pout his lips would always wear if he didn't find so much in the world a joke worth smiling or smirking over. His gaze followed the ceiling till he found the wall, following that down till he met the white sink, on top of which sat a can of white spray paint, un-opened shaving cream (his left eyebrow lifted when he saw it), and the yellow and black razor striped like a bee, untouched and immortal -- one of the few items that survived Hanekoma's numerous apartment jumps.

            He closed his eyes and inhaled. Everything smelled like the soap he imagined he could taste if he pressed his tongue against Hanekoma's stomach.

            It had been two years since Hanekoma started signing his tags as CAT and three months since Joshua's last visit.

            There was a lone towel hanging from a haphazard towel rack, ugly in its mockery of one of Hanekoma's most popular tags. Joshua recognized it as a bootleg item, but imagined Hanekoma liked it, cherished it like a special gift, and felt deeply flattered by its existence. He could almost hear _Awww, boss, don't say that about it. Ain't it cute? It's by my very first plagiarist!_

            Joshua thought it looked awful and supposed it was in there as a conversation piece.

            Which was exactly why he planned to never address it.

            On the bathroom floor, a cheap wastebasket stood on its wide mouth, overturned, the bottom serving as a table for his orange cell phone, which seemed able to endure torment no one's cell phone ever should.

            His hand lifted from the hot bath and he shook it dry as he could.

            Slowly, lazily, he reached for the phone.

 

 

 

            After WildKat's doors closed at a strange hour of the night (business hours weren't reliable when the business was open "whenever I feel like it!"), Hanekoma returned to his apartment. He found Joshua, who had been there for an hour, sitting on blanket -- which was on top of what pretended to be a couch but was really just an ugly lump of cushions on a rickety frame in the shape of a couch. His expression was vapid and unreadable, eyes fixed on the television.

            On screen, an actress flailed her arms and shrieked in what was probably supposed to be distress, but was mostly pathetic instead.

            "Hey, Josh! What're y-" was what Hanekoma had been saying as he closed the door behind him, beginning to remove his jacket, but he froze in the process behind the couch, his own eyes glued to the screen.

            Joshua didn't answer.

            It wasn't until commercial break that Hanekoma broke his trance and fully removed his jacket, moving around the couch to join his guest. The cushions seemed to sink when he did.

            They watched together in silence for twenty minutes and only twenty minutes because Joshua had a head start on the soap opera marathon and had become bored -- something Hanekoma became aware of when he felt the pressure of a palm squeezing his inner thigh, weight pressing down harder as the palm's owner leaned nearer.

            He feigned obliviousness. "Not interested?" he wondered, eyes shifting from the screen to Joshua's faint smile and then his body, which was closer than most people would find comfortable. "She's gonna reveal somethin' huge after the break!"

            "Please," said Joshua, sassy like a diva, scolding as if to say _you should know better_. "You can't tell me you don't already know what's going to happen."

            "Never know! The producers might'a given it a pinch'a creativity this t-ah _aow!_ "

            He exhaled a puff of air when Joshua let go.

            When Joshua spoke again, dignity saturated his words. "I'll tell you what's going to happen: she's going to reveal herself to be a huge tart. She's living a double life -- one in Shinjuku as a whore and the other in Narita, making bento boxes."

            "There's no way you figured that out already."

            "It's fine if you don't believe me," he said, as if Hanekoma wouldn't be able to find such allowance or graciousness as his anywhere in the known and unknown universes with the possible exception of God's, but even that would be a close call. "You can keep watching if you like; I'll keep doing what I'm doing."

            Despite his apparent disinterest, Hanekoma heard a zipper unzip. "I _can_ ," he agreed, because he knew he could get away with it. "But you're a pretty big distraction."

            "Try crying about it," the younger of the pair suggested, "but you shouldn't bother right now. If you keep watching, by the time this episode is over, I'm sure you will be anyway."

            By that time, even Hanekoma's voice had become sly. "Awful thing to say," he said, moving one large, strong palm to press firmly against the place where the Joshua's devil wings should have been. "Just 'cause I'm a real sensitive old nice guy."

            Although the show had returned to the screen, the melodramatic actor and actress' voices much louder than the low giggle that seemed to become even lower the further Joshua's upper body lowered, Hanekoma didn't notice.

            "You'll live, I'm sure," said Joshua, and it was the last thing he said.

 

 

 

            "Mr. H? I need a towel."

            Hanekoma held the phone away from his face, staring at it in confusion, wondering if he'd really heard what he thought he did. After he shook it and put it back to his ear, he asked, "You really called for that?"

            The voice answered, "I'm on the phone with you, aren't I?"

            "Couldn't ya just talk louder?"

            "My throat hurts and I don't want to yell through a door."

            With his other hand, Hanekoma smacked his palm against the side of his head and stared at the bathroom door. His expression was somewhere between horror and amusement, but was mostly amusement. "Aight, aight. One sec."

            "Thanks. Sorry to be a bother."

            Even though it apologized, the phone didn't sound sorry.

 

 

 

            It had been five months since their last relationship. "Relationship" was an open-ended word and a poor way to describe it, but Hanekoma couldn't find a proper word to explain the way it felt like dating someone for a few weeks and then breaking up without uttering a word. No physical contact -- no nothing but the casual friendship they'd always had, like the whole attraction had been imagined.

            "Ugh," Joshua would say, turning his head away if Hanekoma dared try to kiss him -- and often did during these short periods because Joshua didn't like it and always tried to escape. "You've still got glazed sugar on your lip."

            If that wasn't a plausible excuse, he'd make a different one, pushing Hanekoma's face away, fussing, "You're drinking cheap coffee again. It's worse than your fly-by-night cigarette addiction."

            It would have been enough to drive a normal man insane.

            Joshua didn't have a word for it either: the abnormality of the situation didn't occur to him.

 

 

 

            "You've got a towel in here already! That one not good enough? I guess the material's pretty rough... I'll make sure I get a cashmere one to leave in here next time."

            "Velvet would do," Joshua admitted.

            On the wall, the bootleg towel dangled.

            The water shifted when Joshua sat up in Hanekoma's bathtub, the room still full of heat and steam, window and mirror alike fogged to obscurity. You could hardly tell which was which. "I didn't want that one touching my hair," he explained, matter-of-fact, rising with no concern over the fact he was naked.

            When Hanekoma offered the towel, the whole transaction somehow shady like a drug deal, Joshua accepted it gingerly and dried his hair first. The phone balanced precariously on the edge of the overturned wastebasket on the floor, and Hanekoma caught it out of the corner of his eye. "Good thing y'didn't drop it in the tub," he said, opening the bathroom door and taking a step out, holding it open for the skinny young man who still had the childish habit of leaving his clothes in other rooms.

            Hanekoma had a feeling he did it on purpose.

            Joshua shrugged his shoulders, wrapping the towel around his body like a wrap dress, leaning down to pick the phone up. "I would have been more concerned about the soap myself."

 

 

 

            It happened again in the room that tried to be a living room. It began as a spark from the unspoken, electric-shock connection between them when Joshua stepped on Hanekoma's toes in a manner someone might call "accidentally on purpose."

            In the moment, Joshua wouldn't have been able to tell anyone how it started -- but two hours later he'd be able to recall right down to the seconds and remember the details of every hitch in his breath and the gasp that escaped him when Hanekoma's arm caught him around the shoulders, the other draped down the length of his slim body, rough fingertips squeezing dents into the place where the towel fold revealed bare white flesh, stubble-covered chin tilted down and posture slumped to the point he was able to press his mouth against Joshua's in a kiss he couldn't get away from.

            Hanekoma would have been able to tell everyone right away that the whole thing wasn't his fault, but he never would. Even if it wasn't Hanekoma's fault, Joshua didn't reciprocate. What he did do, when he felt the grip tighten and become rough, was lift his eyelashes and look in the face of someone who was looking back at him in the middle of an act couples found passionate and affectionate instead of competitive and awkward, feeling not for the first time that Sanae Hanekoma was far more beastly than he let on.

            When Hanekoma's arm drew him nearer, Joshua's body tensed with the overwhelming desire to attack. It was such a sudden, violent interest that the feeling alone kept him still. He tilted his chin instead, eyelashes lowering slowly till his eyes were shut again. The wall that had been his resistance slackened and he felt the immediate invasion of a foreign tongue, ready to take advantage of any weakness in his defense.

            It was the closest they'd ever come to a kiss, and it broke when Hanekoma's palm found the fold of the towel, slipping inside.

            "Nnh," Joshua exhaled into Hanekoma's mouth, hand drifting to the other's thicker wrist, gripping it to stop him.

            When Hanekoma lifted his chin and straightened his stance, Joshua lifted his own chin in turn, looking up with an expression that was a lot of things, but closest to a kind of curious adoration, if only someone like him had been able to adore anything. "That wasn't too bad," he offered, almost shyly, but otherwise had no criticism.

            He could feel his heart hammering.

            Hanekoma was either oblivious or didn't notice it. "Sweet of ya to say, J," he said, and sounded like he meant it even though his own eyes contained the remnants of a sharp interest behind his sunglasses. "Big compliment comin' from you."

            "I'm going to bed," declared Joshua, taking a step back to free himself from Hanekoma's grip. "You can't come. I've already taken a bath and I don't want to take another." When he turned to pass, his left palm lingered longer than it needed to on Hanekoma's body, fingertips dragging across his stomach as if he was trying to play the harp. The brief look he flashed Hanekoma when he did pass was sly, aided by low-lidded eyes and a pursed mouth.

            Hanekoma turned his head and watched Joshua disappear into the bedroom.

 

 

 

            He isn't as vocal as his voice suggests he should be. He intakes quick, sudden gasps of air and all his exhales shudder. He turns his head away as if that will keep his partner from watching him and tilts it back, his back arches while his eyebrows twist more for visual effect than from how the sensation has affected him. 

            His partner likes it this way, because it's easier to appreciate sweet, urgent, whimpered _a-aaah!_ s when they aren't so constant your ears are drowning in them.

            The final whimper is followed by a loosened grip, suddenly weaker. It takes the older of the two a few extra minutes to finish, the act suddenly rough, but the young man in his bed doesn't mind as much as he sometimes pretends he does. It's fair: he may take longer, but tonight the backs of his shoulders are marked by Joshua's nails.

            When it's over, Hanekoma bows his head over Joshua's chest, his mouth parted as he exhales a gentle _haaaaaaaa_ , allowing one hand to explore the thin body beneath him, pausing at its far-too-prominent ribcage, rubbing his thumb along it as if he expects it to produce a melody.

            Even he thinks it's incredible someone as powerful as Joshua can be so scrawny -- someone who could be snapped in half by the right hands, if only he was caught. He lifts his head in time to catch the sedated, low-lidded expression Joshua has aimed at him, purple eyes heavy with sleep and sated from sex; cheeks flushed with the nigh-unbearable heat that hadn't yet left him.

            Their eye contact lasts several long seconds, all other sound muted except their breathing.

            It's Joshua who breaks the quiet, humming a low, thoughtful note before he turns his world black by shutting his eyes.

            Hanekoma lowers his head again, pressing his mouth against the white skin over Joshua's breastbone. He can hear his name on Joshua's tongue, playful in its tentative experimentation -- the faint, trailing "Sanae..." that doesn't go anywhere; doesn't turn into a sentence; offers no explanation.

            Against Joshua's body, Hanekoma's mouth turns into a smirk because he thinks it cute yet utterly obscene how the his sex flush reaches out toward his shoulders and down his chest like a T, taunting the shape of a cross.

 

 

 

            Hanekoma wasn't surprised by the relatively smooth transition from a human boy to the Composer. Joshua took it well, even in the beginning -- nothing seemed to surprise him, frighten him, or worry him.

            But Hanekoma could remember he was almost surprised when the boy, only fifteen back then, approached him cheerfully, pinning a look on him that was frightfully intense, the smile on his mouth full of something worse than mischief.

            "What do you think..." he started slowly, shifting his eyes to the side to look out over Cat Street, voice almost impish. "...of Megumi Kitaniji?"


End file.
